★★★★☆ The sheer irascible nature of the character is his unique selling point. This is a man who has to work with idiots, for idiots and is also fighting against a hidden enemy intent on making him forget what he is supposed to be doing.

★★★★☆ Looking for the perfect antidote to Trump, Brexit and a second general election in two years? Well, here you go! Anything that can light up a miserable, wet Monday evening in Bristol as effectively as this definitely has the necessary medicinal properties . . . For some simple feel-good, escapist razzmatazz, head on down to the Hippodrome.

★★★★☆ The plot is a simple one; a young boy is bored having to spend nights away at Granny’s consuming a variety of cabbage based dishes, the tedium punctuated only by playing Scrabble and waiting for the inevitable very audible farting. This soon gives way to growing sense of wonder when real life is presented as not all it seems.

★★★★☆ The musical is based on an earlier farce, Birds of a Feather, the bones of which lie close to the surface of the present production. The core structure is a love quadrangle: boy/girl, boy/father, (gay) father/transvestite ‘wife’, transvestite ‘wife’/’son’.